The Forge Archives

I've been working on my town for tonight's game, and I'm pretty happy, but feel that there's something still missing. If anyone from my game is reading, stop now.


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Shadetree Branch

Characters:
-Silas – Steward
-Abiah - Steward's wife, converted mountain woman
-Hoheya - Twin sister of Abiah, refused to convert to the Faith (calls her sister by her original name, Mocheya)
-Samuel - Lost a daughter to the raids of the mountain people
-Mary - Dead daughter of Samuel
-Lazarus Yellow-hawk - Convert, husband of Elizabeth
-Elizabeth Yellow-hawk - Convert, wife of Lazarus
-Isaiah Yellow Hawk - Only son of Lazarus and Elizabeth, hanged by the mob led by Samuel, was courting Rebecca
-Rebecca - Distraught over the death of Isaiah
-Mark - Rebecca's father.


1a – Abiah considers herself (and all converted mountain people) to be better than the unconverted friends and family she left behind.

1b – She treats the unconverted as hardly better than animals – when her former family would come to town to trade, she was very hostile to them.

2a – Abiah beat a mountain girl that came to town to trade, so severely that she almost died. The girl had told her that the town had corrupted her and that the Spirits would punish her.

2b - The demons have been influencing the mountain people to raid the town. They ensured that Hoheya killed Samuel's daughter in the last raid.

3a - Samuel now believes that all mountain people are evil, and that the Steward's wife Abiah killed his daughter, mistaking her for her twin (no one in town knows that she has a twin sister)

3b – Samuel has been praying for the King to help him remove the "unpure" from the town.

4a - Others within the town have come to believe Samuel that the mountain people are evil.

4b – The demons are increasing the level of racial hostility in the town, picking up on Samuel's desires.

5 - An angry mob led by Samuel and Mark lynched Isaiah Yellow-Hawk for courting Rebecca.
   Lazarus shoots Mark as the dogs ride into town, for his part in the lynching.


6a - Silas wants the dogs to dispel the mob outside his house, confirm that Abiah is innocent, and punish Samuel for starting this mess.

   Abiah wants to leave her past in the past - she does not want to reveal that she has a twin. In fact,she does not want to acknowledge that she was not born to the Faith. She considers herself to have been reborn when she converted.

   Hoheya wants her sister returned to her - she perceives the Faithful to have deceived Mocheya and stolen her from her rightful place in the world.

   Samuel wants the dogs to execute Abiah for murdering his daughter. If he finds out that it's Abiah has a twin sister, and that she is responsible for Mary's death, he will try to kill her instead, but still want Abiah to be punished just for being a mountain person.

   Lazarus wants the dogs to punish most of the town (but mainly Samuel) for killing his son.

   Elizabeth wants the dogs to keep her husband from hurting anyone, and to have them perform a funeral service for Isaiah.

   Rebecca wants the dogs to punish Lazarus for killing her father, and Samuel for killing Isaiah.
   
6b - The demons want the mob led by Samuel to kill Abiah and begin attacking the mountain people, starting with the converts living in the town.

6c - If the dogs never showed up, Samuel would kill Lazarus, and the mob outside the Steward's home would start killing every converted mountain person in town, including Abiah, along with anyone who resisted them. Soon, they would launch attacks against the mountain people nearby, killing as many as they could.

For my own benefit, I'm including a step 7 - what's going on in the town when the Dogs ride in.

7 - When the dogs ride into town, they find the body of Isaiah hung from a tree beside the road. There is a mob outside the Steward's home, led by Mark and Samuel, who are preaching to the town about how the mountain people are inferior. Unless they can find a way to stop it (and stop it damn fast) Lazarus shoots Mark as the dogs ride into the square. He may not be dead, but only if they can get to him quickly.

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To me, the situation doesn't seem quite done. I'd really like this game to bring on the complicated moral questions and require some tough judgements, since the three towns we've run previous to this have been (relatively) straightforward. Any ideas on what I can tweak to make things really tough, or is this complicated enough?